bad scary evil sex-hater

If sex genuinely has no morality then why are sex repulsed/averse folks told to keep their aversion to themselves in order to not be sex negative

sex repulsed peopl remember this always

Shoutout to all the sex-repulsed aces fr, some of our strongest soldiers on this site 💪💪💪💪🐙💪💪💪💪

I see a lot of asexual people on tumblr casually mentioning how they've been talked into having sex, despite finding it kinda boring or unpleasant; or how they've had to "meet in the middle" and "compromise" with an allo partner; or how they aren't that into sex but they really don't mind and they just do it for their partner. things like that.

so hey. guys. while aces CAN in fact have sex, and that stuff can be okay in context, I really want us to also NOT normalize the idea of just having sex for someone else's sake. a lot of acespec people have complicated relationships with sexual attraction and desire, and I think that can sometimes make it hard to tell what's part of the experience of you being ace, and what's actually *not* okay to be experiencing in a relationship. so let me just say, you should only be having sex if YOU GENUINELY WANT TO. if you're having sex because you feel like you have to for some external reason, or because you can't say no without there being a consequence in your relationship or your life, that is *not consent.* it's not consent unless it's freely given. like, let's be clear, sexual abuse isn't always physically violent. sexual *coercion* is a thing, when people are manipulated or pressured into "consenting" to have sex with someone, and it can be seriously traumatizing. so yeah. having sex when you don't feel like it isn't a compromise you just "have" to make because you're ace. allosexual people don't "have" to have sex in their relationships. and allosexual people's feelings aren't more important than asexual people's bodily autonomy.

This feels like a fitting convo to add this breakdown, which I first saw in the book Ace by Angela Chen. In her words, this model “expands the ‘yes means yes’ slogan”

The 2025 Ace Community Survey is now open! Anyone who is 15 or older are encouraged to respond. This includes folks who do not identify as ace! (those responses help for comparison purposes) The survey is also available in 16 languages!

Find the survey link here: https://acecommunitysurvey.org/

I do think that the "sex repulsion as dysphoria about being culturally assigned a sexual identity or role that is incongruent with how you see yourself" framework can apply to a lot of other queer experiences besides just my particular brand of asexuality + total sex repulsion, by the way. A gay man who is repulsed by the idea of sex with women is experiencing sex repulsion, even if he doesnt experience it with men. A trans person who is repulsed by the idea of sex pre-transition is experiencing sex repulsion even if they don't experience it after transitioning to their desired comfort level. I think this framework offers a lot of potential for solidarity across queer experiences, without forcing either fully sex-repulsed people or anyone else in the community to compromise on their comfort or boundaries.

Once you start looking at sex repulsion this way, you understand that it's inherently a queer experience, not the conservative puritan bogeyman everyone here seems to think it is. There's not just part of the community that doesn't like sex, and then everyone else who does — there is a whole community of people who can't or don't want to fit in the "one cisgender man and one cisgender woman in a sexual/romantic marriage with children" box, and whose boundaries lie somewhere outside it. No one here has to be anyone's competition. We just need to build a world that's expansive enough that we can all fit.

Happy ace week to asexual women, who are too often treated as “frigid bitches who need to suck it up and tend to their partners’ sexual needs.” Happy ace week to asexual men — and especially asexual trans men — whose asexuality is too often treated as something that makes them less of a man. Happy ace week to asexual nonbinary and genderqueer people, who are too often written off as “just trying to be special.” Happy ace week to disabled aces, whose ability to know their sexual orientation is too often called into question and whose asexuality is too often treated as less legitimate than the asexuality of able bodied neurotypicals. Happy ace week to aces of color, who are too often fetishized and treated as less ace than white aces. Happy ace week to trans and intersex ace, whose bodies are so often treated as obscene, who are so often asked invasive questions about their bodies and sex lives which would be uncomfortable even if they weren’t ace.

May we someday live in a world that respects the right to say no forever, to never consent to sex. May we someday live in a world where it isn’t treated as a rejection to not feel sexually attracted to a romantic and/or sexual partner. May we someday live in a world where asexuality is treated not as a problem to be fixed but as a normal variation of human sexuality. May we someday live in a world where people learn to stop conflating their own sexual desire towards a person with that person being allosexual. May we someday live in a world that respects asexuality.

The Invisible Pressure: Asexuality, Relationships, and Consent

There is an insidious, quiet violence that asexual people, particularly sex-repulsed aces, are subjected to in relationships. It’s not loud. It doesn’t always look like abuse. Sometimes, it’s dressed up in the language of “compromise”. Sometimes, it’s even endorsed by therapists and relationship “experts.”

But at the root of it is this one idea: That sex is the cornerstone of every valid relationship. That if you don’t want sex, something is wrong with you. That your partner is entitled to sex. That you, as an asexual person, owe it to them because that’s “just how relationships work.”

Asexual people are constantly navigating a world that tells us our love is incomplete unless it includes sex. That our boundaries are just hurdles to be negotiated. And that if we’re not careful, we’ll be the one accused of being selfish or withholding.

And the truth is, this pressure doesn’t only happen in unhealthy relationships. It can exist even in good ones. Even in the ones where your partner is kind and respectful and never once demands anything of you. Even when your partner is loving, patient, supportive—the ideal partner. The pressure doesn’t just vanish because the person next to you is good. Because the pressure isn’t coming from them: it’s coming from the world around you.

So even in the safest relationships, we still carry that fear. That if we say no too often, too permanently, we’ll eventually be left behind—not because our partner is cruel, but because we were never what society told them to want. And that’s what makes the pressure so hard to name, so hard to fight. So easy to internalize.

Then, even the most well-meaning conversations about consent often fail us. Why? Because while people are taught to respect a “no” in the moment, there’s still the underlying assumption that “no” is temporary. That eventually, we’ll change our minds. That if someone is patient, kind, persistent enough—we’ll come around. But some of us don’t. Some of us never want sex. Not now. Not later. Not eventually. And the idea that permanent or indefinite boundaries are abnormal is what pushes so many asexual people into violating their own comfort to meet someone else’s expectations.

It’s a form of slow coercion, cloaked in the language of compromise.

And when asexual people bring this into therapy—when we try to advocate for ourselves—we’re often met with therapists who have internalized the same cultural script. A script that says “sex is a need and part of a healthy relationship”. We’re encouraged to meet halfway.

But “halfway” always seems to mean giving up your boundaries to preserve the relationship.

Where is the room for our needs? For the idea that sex is not an automatic default but a choice, one that should never be coerced—whether overtly or through guilt, shame, or the threat of abandonment?

Too often, asexual people are pressured into saying yes to things we don’t want. Not because we’re comfortable with it. Not because our desires have changed. But because we’re terrified of being left. Because we’ve been taught that we’re the broken one. That we’re the reason the relationship is “failing.”

We are not broken. We are not selfish. And sex is not the sole measure of love, intimacy, or commitment. A relationship without sex is still a real relationship.

Consent only means something when it includes the possibility of permanent, indefinite boundaries. If “no” isn’t allowed to be forever, it was never truly respected to begin with.

To be clear about this:

If you can understand why we don't say "preferred name/pronouns" about trans people, you can understand why sex repulsion isn't "just personal preference".

I love ace ppl bc they’re like you know you don’t have to right. And it’s true. you dontttttt have to

[ As long as people don’t know about asexuality—hell, forget about the label, so long as they don’t know that saying no forever and for any reason and in any context is okay—sex education, sex therapy, and popular depictions of sex are incomplete and people don’t have the relevant information to fully consent. Sexual rights should not be assumed and self-determination must never end upon entering a relationship. You can give a no with zero caveats in each and every situation, full stop. You can say no if someone loves you and you love them back. You can say no for the rest of your life. ]

Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2020)

I think sex repulsed aces should be able to openly embrace their indentity, their "culture" and to be openly happy being themselves without having to say for the 627291 time things like "but it's okay if other people enjoy sexual stuff!" so people don't harrass them, or accuse them of being "puritans".

Sex repulsed people should not have to walk on eggshells when discussing their orientation and constantly remind everyone that they're totally fine with other people having sex and that they're not an anti-sex puritan. You're allowed to be grossed out by the thought of sex and you should not feel like a bad person for your discomfort, no explanation or justification needed. If anyone tells you you're harming others just by being grossed out they're full of shit

a lot of people who have experienced abuse do not know they have experienced it.

some people will hear this and think, well it couldn’t have been that bad if you didn’t even know.

but knowing you were abused is not a matter of severity. it is a matter of whether the forms of abuse you’ve experienced have been de-naturalized in a supportive social context, and thus made knowable as something that did not have to happen.

when people list common forms of abuse, many people will be in tags and notes saying “I didn’t know this wasn’t normal.”

it’s sad because this sentiment simultaneously misses and hits the point exactly.

abuse is normal. but what people mean when they say this is, “I didn’t know I was allowed to be hurt by this, to object to this, that anyone would ever recognize how violated, degraded, or dehumanized it feels to experience this.”

all of that is expressed through the word “normal” in these statements of realization because we all must constantly stomach being hurt, violated, degraded, and dehumanized in “normal” life, and we are taught from a young age that if something is “normal” it means we cannot object to it or escape it.

you’re allowed to feel violated by normalized forms of abuse. you are allowed to object to normalized forms of violation.

you don’t have to take on the loaded terms of Survivor and Abuser to describe things if you don’t want to or it feels inappropriate or inaccurate to you.

you can just allow yourself to recognize when people are abusing the power they have over you in ways that benefit themselves at your expense, and to recognize the ways that people with power over you coerce you to give up autonomy over your body.

something does not become less traumatic for being common and normal. the normalized trauma of being dehumanized and violated is part of what oppression is. it’s part of how subjugated classes within a population are constructed and maintained as distinct.

it’s okay to acknowledge it hurts. you don’t have to internalize it as something that was your own fault. you don’t have to suppress it forever.

you’re allowed to acknowledge that who you are was shaped by the people with power over you abusing that power.

abuse being common means you are not alone. you are in good company. we’re in it together ❤️

Okay let's get this straight.

"Asexuals can still have sex" does not mean that asexuals can begrudgingly put their sex repulsion aside and force themselves to please their partner. It means that because asexuality is simply defined as a spectrum of little to no sexual attraction and one's sexuality consists of many different factors other than attraction, such as sex drive and emotional connection, there are individuals on the asexual spectrum who can and do enjoy having sex even though they lack sexual attraction.

"Aromantic people can still date" does not mean that aromantic people can lie to themselves enough to go against their actual wants and get into a romantic relationship and pretend to be "normal". It means that because aromanticism is simply defined as a spectrum of little to no romantic attraction and human relationships are very much complex and romance itself is loosely defined, some aromantic people do in fact desire a romantic relationship while not experiencing romantic attraction because of other factors such as companionship and intimacy

I don’t trust the way some of you talk about sex in media. Like I feel like you would conflate an ace saying something which boils down to “the way sex is portrayed in media as a human universal is alienating” with puritanism without realizing compulsory sexuality and puritanism are two sides of the same coin and you have to deconstruct both, not just the one that oppresses you

saw too many posts that pissed me off, so here. for all your "alleged leftist saying masturbating is destroying society" needs AND all your "alleged leftist saying having sex is morally necessary to defeat fascism" needs. (please keep image description and/or alt text if you repost)

in case it wasn't a clear enough corollary, getting grossed out by sex is also morally neutral. the people who equate "having and enjoying sex" with "fighting fascism," and use "grossed out by sex" as a synonym for "policing what consenting adults do" are also not getting "sex is morally neutral" through their heads, at all. you can be grossed out by something without thinking it's morally wrong or should be illegal; you can be grossed out by sex without it saying anything about your politics. sex repulsion also doesn't need to be "cured" to make anyone a more progressive or accepting person. sometimes sex repulsion Just Is, and it doesn't mean anything other than "yeah i'd like to avoid sex personally, thanks"

the reason i made this post was because i was angry about not being able to find sex positivity posts that didn't either imply sex repulsion is fascist (way too common), or word things poorly in a way that probably wasn't malicious, but made it hard to be sure that that wasn't what they meant. you can be a proud gooner without needing to justify it by saying it's praxis or it's morally necessary, i promise

btw it's fine to be aspec because of trauma or your disorders or whatever. i partially identify as aspec because of how past relationships have affected me and being autistic & schizoid. it doesn't matter why you use a label. if it fits then it fits, and you're allowed to use that label <2